New Farm Bill Passes with Two-Year Tax Incentive for Conservation!

Advocates Alert: May 23, 2008

The expanded
tax incentive for conservation easement donations has been extended through the
end of 2009, and retroactive to January 1.We simply could not have achieved this
major victory without your help every step of the way!

Yesterday,
Congress overrode a Presidential veto to pass the Food, Conservation and Energy
Act of 2008. Although there was a clerical error in the process, it largely
concerns a 34-page segment of the bill that was not in the copy of the bill the
President vetoed (and is unrelated to the conservation provisions we have
focused on).*

In addition
to renewing the easement incentive, this bill:

Provides a
total of $733 million over 5 years for the Farmland Protection
Program. It also
clarifies the eligibility of land trusts to participate directly and specifies
the following funding levels: $97M in FY08, $121M in FY09, $150M in FY10, $175M
in FY11 and $200M in FY12.

Re-establishes
the Grassland Reserve Program with a goal of 1.22 million acres, funded with an
estimated $300 million.

Thank
you for adding
your voice to the hundreds of land trusts and dozens of conservation, wildlife,
sportsmen's and agricultural organizations that helped make this victory
possible. We have powerful champions in Senators Max Baucus (D-MT) and Charles
Grassley (R-IA) and Representatives Mike Thompson (D-CA) and Dave Camp (R-MI),
but champions alone have failed to extend dozens of other popular tax provisions
that expired this year. Your passion,
and those many urgent phone calls made all the
difference!

How You Can
Help

Pat yourself
on the back! Soon,
we'll be releasing a new "grassroots toolkit" full of templates to spread the
news about this important conservation tool in your community, and to re-launch
our campaign to make the incentive permanent. But today is all about saying thank
you:

Send
thank-you emails to all the board
members, partners and individual supporters who you've asked to contact
Congress throughout this process.

Fax thank
you letters to each Senator and
Representative who did anything
to support the easement incentive, from cosponsoring S.469 or H.R. 1576 to
voting for the final Farm Bill. Click here for a sample
letter including links to those lists.

Send a brief
personal email or handwritten note to any Congressional staff members who were
particularly helpful.

Thank any reporters who covered your work with
the easement incentive. Consider forwarding a copy of our press release
with a personal note.

Of course,
we're disappointed the conservation tax incentive wasn't made permanent, but
this two-year extension has the potential to help us conserve an area twice the
size of Rhode Island--forever. That's a legacy for future
generations we can truly be proud of!

Thank you!

Russ
Shay Director of Public
Policy Land Trust
Alliance rshay@lta.org202-638-4725

Our
Mission:To save the places
people love by strengthening land conservation across America.

*
Interested in the controversy over how the veto was done? In short, House and Senate parliamentary
experts believe that all parts of the Farm Bill except the 34-page international
trade section that wasn't in the package that the President vetoed are now
law.

Here are excerpts from the Washington Post
account:

With an overwhelming 82 to 13 vote, the Senate
yesterday completed the override of President Bush's veto of a comprehensive farm
bill, shrugging off Republican concerns about an embarrassing legislative glitch
to make the $307 billion bill the law of the land.

House GOP leaders continued to grumble that Democrats
had violated the Constitution by pressing forward with the veto override after
they discovered that a whole section of the bill on trade policy had been
inadvertently dropped from the version vetoed Wednesday.

But Democratic leaders said they had court precedent
and constitutional scholars on their side. "The veto override will have the
force of law," said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).

Lawmakers said they would take up the farm law's
trade section as a separate bill and
pass it after their Memorial Day break.

An enrolling clerk dropped the section, which
includes international food aid programs, as the measure was being sent to the
White House.

House Democratic leaders did push the entire farm
bill back through the House again yesterday, in case they decide to start the
process over again. But that appeared doubtful after the Senate's action.

Citing the Supreme Court's 1892 decision in Field
v. Clark, House parliamentarian John Sullivan released a statement yesterday
saying that "the law that would result from a bicameral override of the
President's veto on H.R. 2419 would be the text that was presented to the
President on parchment, notwithstanding its omission of the congressionally
intended [trade] title."

Lastly, from Congress Daily: "White House spokesman Scott Stanzel said
the administration is treating the bill as law, although he continued to
criticize its provisions."

Document Actions

February 12: The House successfully voted 279-137, demonstrating a supermajority (67%) of support, on H.R. 644, a package of charitable incentives including the conservation tax incentive.Now we need your help in the Senate to secure co-sponsors! Sens. Heller and Stabenow have requested land trusts’ assistance in asking senators to cosponsor S. 330, the Conservation Easement Incentive Act.Learn more »